From Student / Worker protest movement
'From the Student / Worker Protest Movement' Reclamations Journal; Issue One Issue 1:1 (December 2009) Editors' Introduction Dead Futures, Resurgent Futures Anonymous,Necrosocial Joshua Clover, November 18 Strike Address on Berkeley's Sproul Plaza Fault Lines Zachary Levenson, Berkeley After Wheeler: Beyond Organization and Mobilization Alexander Zevin, On Some Lessons from the Protests: Report from UCLA’s Campbell Hall Bonds Amanda Armstrong and Paul Nadal, Building Times: How Lines of Care Occupied Wheeler Hall Two Anonymous Protesters, UC Davis Occupations: Narrative of Events Monsieur Hulot, “To Fan the Flames of Discontent”: Some Thoughts and Reflections on the Occupation of Mrak Hall at Davis Decolonizations Xamuel Bañales, The Coloniality of Organizing at UC Berkeley: November 2 Speech George Ciccariello-Maher, Decolonization is a Fight: An Editor's Response to Xamuel Bañales Open Letters Daniel Perlstein, Violence and the University: An Open Letter regarding the Friday Night Events at UC Berkeley Satirical Letter on the Limits of Protest -- UCMeP On the Limits of Legitimate Protest: An Open Letter from UCMeP to the UC Community We here at the UC Movement for Efficient Privatization (UCMeP) were appalled by the actions taken yesterday (December 2) by an errant group of demonstrators who sought to disrupt the “non-political” commemoration of the 45th Anniversary of Mario Savio’s famous speech by pushing their own selfish political agenda. As hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza for the free pizza and giveaways promised by the ASUC, this swarm of hooligans stormed the event bearing banners and signs that had nothing at all to do with the legacy and museumification of the Free Speech Movement. “Democratize the Regents”? “Reclaim Cal”? What do those demands have to do with selling stale coffee and over-priced salads and chicken fingers to undergraduates? While none of us here at UCMeP were actually in attendance yesterday (most of us were too busy gleefully re-watching YouTube videos of riot-gear-clad police pummeling students during the November 20th Wheeler “burglary”), we read all about how these lawless criminals failed to respect what the Academic Council has recently described as the “limits of protest.” Once again, a violent minority of trust fund anarchists turned to inappropriate and illegitimate tactics that threatened everyone’s civil right to enjoy free samples of Naked Juice (which were generously provided at the event by Naked Juice’s PepsiCo distributor). Faced with such formidable threats, it is no wonder that Homeland Security felt it necessary to close both Sproul and California Hall yesterday, fearing that a bunch of unwashed hippies might invade the administration’s hallowed halls to hold a drugged-out techno-rave and to transform the Chancellor office into the prized site of a 24-hour drum circle. Don’t these so-called “activists” understand that like the Free Speech Movement, the moment for taking action has passed and the time for opportunistic revisionism is at hand? You all have had your fun. Now just sit back and look forward to the opening of “The Movement Against Privatization Bubble Tea Stand,” which the next round of student fee hikes will be used as bond collateral to build. Take pride in what you have accomplished. Maybe in 45 years you too can come back to Cal for a celebration of your own on Sproul Plaza, which by then will have been renamed British Petrolium’s Sony BMG Square for Advanced Weaponry Research. In the meantime, for those of you who feel you must persist in your misguided adventurism, well, UCMeP would like to offer two pieces of sage advice, both of which echo remarks made recently by Chancellor Birgeneau, the Academic Council, and others: 1. Remember who the true enemy is: democracy. Autocratic and undemocratically elected leaders like the Board of Regents and President Mark Yudof did not make this crisis (although they are trying to make the most out of it, if you know what we mean). Instead, as Chancellor Birgeneau has repeatedly affirmed in his letters to the UC Berkeley community, fault for the problems (or opportunities?) the University of California now faces rests with your state representatives. The fact that officials who were democratically elected have failed you so miserably just goes to show the limits of democracy and, more crucially, the danger of calls for the democratization of the Regents. This is why we here at UCMeP continue to commend the UC Regents and the rest of the UC administration for their blatant dismissal of the interests and concerns of anyone else. 2. And most importantly, make sure the protest tactics you use DO NOT threaten the daily operations of the university. After all, if business is not allowed to go on as usual, then the business of education will have a hard time going on at all. Is that what you really want? Do you actually want to, as someone whose name really isn’t worth mentioning once said, “put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and ... make it stop”? Do you have any idea how much money that would cost? So, as this somewhat uneventful semester draws to a close, we hope all activists at the University of California will head into 2010 heeding this modest advice. Not only will doing so help your movement’s marketability in the long-run, but it will also ensure the smooth and efficient privatization of the world’s premiere public university. Faithfully yours, The UC Movement for Efficient Privatization www.privatizeUCnow.tumblr.com Facebook: UC Movement for Efficient Privatization (UCMeP) The Crisis in the eyes of the Common Worker Anthony Dick at the Corner about University of California students protesting cuts in subsidies. The spectacle of generally left-wing students demanding that more wealth be transferred up to them is as amusing -- or irritating, depending on your taste -- now as it always has been. First and foremost, the protests are about privileged kids demanding subsidies from working people. The UC system will continue to be heavily subsidized by taxpayers, and the students who attend are among the most naturally gifted, with the highest future earning potential, in the country. This is especially true at the system's flagship schools of Berkeley and UCLA, where the protests have been most intense. Narcissism and self-absorption are the norm on college campuses, but it really is pushing the limits to throw such a tantrum at the idea that you will be getting a smaller amount of free money taken out of the paychecks of strapped taxpayers, most of whom could never dream of the advantages and opportunities you enjoy. Commentary Of course, it has always been thus, or at least has been since government decided to subsidize higher education with land grants first and then more direct aid, including subsidized student loans and grants for research from which the recipient universities would extract massive "overhead" charges. From a certain cramped point of view, all of these subsidies are transfers from working people to the privileged. This view is "cramped" because it misses the point. We subsidize higher education for essentially social reasons, including to raise the competence of the work force and to support scholarship that could not happen otherwise. That individuals reap a windfall from these subsidies in the form of higher salaries in the future (in the case of students) and professional advancement (in the case of professors) is, in principle, an unintended consequence of the subsidies, not the objective of them. Unfortunately, we have lost track of this thinking in recent years. Support for universities has taken on the attributes of most pork-barrel spending, so we have money going for all sorts of things for which it is hard, if not impossible, to justify subsidies on any intellectually honest basis. Intercollegiate athletic programs come to mind (much as I enjoy them, I cannot come up with a good reason to subsidize them), and so probably do most professional schools. Something else, however, has also changed. Higher education, especially elite higher education, drives far more incremental earnings today than it did when we started subsidizing universities in a big way. Rightly or wrongly, a degree from a top school is perceived as the key to the good life. In effect, the unintended benefits of subsidies that flow to students have become far more valuable than they once were. It should not surprise us, therefore, that the recipients of those subsidies are ever more dogged in their defense of them, and that their demands for more, or even the preservation of the status quo, smell so self-interested. posted directly from source by Patrick Rogers http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2009/11/bratty-greedy-college-students-again.html